Machine for unmaking rope or cordage



UNITED STATES `PATENT oEEioE.

JOSEPH WOOD, OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.

MACHINE FR UNMAKING .ROPE OR CAORDAGE.

Specification of Letters Patent No.`16,858, dated March 17, 1857.

To all whom t may concern.'

Be it known that I, JosEri-I VOoD, of the city of Brooklyn, in thecounty of Kings and State of New York, have invented a new and usefulMachine for Unmaking Rope or Cordage; and I do hereby declare that thefollowing is a full, clear, and exact description of the same, referencebeing had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of thisspecification, in which,-

Figure l, is a central longitudinal vertical section of the machine.Fig. 2, is a transverse vertical section of the same, in the line x, a3,of Fig. l.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in both gures.

lhe object of this invention is to perform the first stage of thereduction of old rope to its original fiber,viz, to effect theseparation of the strands.

` It consists in a rotating roller head carrying two feed rollers havingtheir' axes arranged perpendicularly to and on opposite sides of its ownaxis of rotation combined with a pointed mandrel that is arranged inline with the said axis of rotation. The rope being conducted betweenthe rollers, the rotation of the rollers in the head drives the ropeupon the point of the mandrel while the rotation of the head upon itsown axis gives the rope a rotary motion in contact with the mandrel inthe opposite direction to the lay of the rope, by which combinedoperation the strands are parted in an easy and effectual manner.

To enable others to make and use my invention, I will proceed todescribe it with reference to the drawings.

A, is the framing of the machine.

B, is the rotating roller head, keyed or otherwise firmly secured to oneend of a hollow shaft C, which is fitted to rotate in bearings D, D, onthe top of the framin@ A.

Jl, El, are the feed rollers which have their axes arranged parallelwit-h each other and transversely or perpendicularly to the axis of theshaft C, at about equal distances from the center thereof.

F, F1, are two sliding pieces of metal fitted to the head B, and eachcontaining the two bearings for one of the rollers. These sliding piecesF, F, have spring a, al, and set screws ZJ, 1, applied to their backsvto give an elastic pressure to the rollers to Blake them bite upon andaccommodate e themselves to the varying size of the rope to be unmade.The rollers are grooved and have short teeth c, c, in the botto-ms ofthe grooves to bite the rope firmly.

I, is the pointed mandrel which. is placed in line with the axis of theshaft C, with its pointed end entering or nearly enteringbetween thefeed rollers E, and is held stationary by set screws z', z', or theirequivalents, in two standards J, J, erected upon the top of the framingA.

Gr, is a sleeve fitted to the exterior of the shaft C, and working in abearing H, on the top of the framing A, and in one half of the foremostbearing D. This sleeve carries a bevel gear CZ, which gears with twobevel gears c, el, on shafts f, f1, which are arranged within therotating roller head radially to the center thereof-and on oppositesides thereof. To the two bevel gears e, el, are attached two spurpinions g, g1, which gear with two other pinions z, h1, one upon each ofthe feed rollers E, E1.

K, isv the driving shaft of the machine, intended to have rotary motionimparted to it in any convenient manner and carrying a spur pinion L,which gears with a pinion M, on a shaft N, and also with a pinion O, ofsimilar size to M, on a shaft P, and thus serves to drive both theshafts N, and P. The shaft N, is furnished also with a pinion Q, whichgears into a spur gear R, that is fast upon the shaft C, and the shaftP, is furnished with a pinion S, smaller than Q, which gears with a spurgear T, of the same size as R, that is fast upon the sleeves Gr, and bythese means the shaft C, and the sleeve Gr, are caused to receive rotarymotion both in the same direction, but the sleeve G, slower than theshaft C, and in consequence of the diiference of velocity between thesaid shaft and sleeve, the bevel gear d, is caused to give motion to thebevel gears c, el, which, through the pinions g, g1, impart motion tot-he pinions L, h1, and thus drive the feed rollers.

The operation of unlaying or separating the strands .is as follows-Therope, which is shown in red color in Fig. l, being cut into proper shortlengths is conducted through the shaft C, to the rollers E, E, and theshaft with the roller head rotating in the opposite direction to the layof the rope, and the rollers E, E1, rotating in the proper direction todraw the rope through the `shaft and. .force it upon the point of themandrel I, cause the opening and perfect unlaying of the strands vIoythe entry of the mandrel into the center of the rope While the rope hasa rotary motion.

It is proper to remark that the relation between the velocity of themotion of the feed rollers and the rotation of the shaft C, shouldapproximate in some degree to the twist of the rope, but by adjustingthese relative velocities to suit rope having an average amount oftwist, a sutliciently near approximation to the less .and greaterdegrees of twist Vwill loe obtained.

The machine illustrated, represents my invention fully, but in practiceI propose to have in the same machine several roller

